Samsung Electronics this week revealed plans to unveil its flagship Galaxy S8 mobile phone with a new digital assistant powered by AI. The assistant will be based on technology gained with Samsung's recent acquisition of Viv Labs. The plans call for Samsung to incorporate the AI into its family of electronics and appliances, ranging from mobile devices to wearable technology and home devices.

In a few days, the U.S. government will take all of our guns and we'll be inundated by ISIS terrorists, or we will be at nuclear war with the world, based on my Twitter feed. Women no longer will be allowed to vote, and global warming will turn us into crispy critters. After watching all three debates and listening to both campaigns, I finally can figure out why Mexico is paying for a wall.

Microsoft earlier this week said it had fallen victim to "Strontium," its code name for the Russian hacking group also known as "Fancy Bear," which has been linked to recent attacks on Democratic Party systems. The group launched a spear phishing attack that targeted vulnerabilities in both the Windows operating system and Adobe Flash, according to Microsoft EVP Terry Myerson.

Peter Thiel, one of the few well-known Silicon Valley figures who has given Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump a public endorsement, on Monday reiterated his support at a National Press Club event in Washington. He prefaced his remarks with a disclaimer. "Nobody thinks his comments about women were acceptable," Thiel told the gathering, referring to Trump.

Internet bots have many useful online purposes, but they have a dark side, too, as three researchers demonstrated in their analysis of Twitter traffic during the first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Bots are used to automate functions on the Net. For example, if you belong to several social networks, you could use a bot to post a photo to all of them at once.

Wells Fargo Bank will lose customers in droves because of the scandal over fraudulently opened accounts and other issues, based on the results of an online survey cg42 conducted last week. More than 85 percent of the respondents -- 1,500 primary customers of the top 10 U.S. retail banks, including 1,000 Wells Fargo customers -- were aware of the scandal.

When news of Samsung's Batterygate first surfaced, I think that mine may have been the only voice saying the Samsung brand would suffer significant damage, but the company didn't realize it yet. It was lonely, but lately others have come to agree. Samsung now is going through one of the most painful times any company ever has endured. Its brand is severely damaged.

Airbnb recently proposed changes to its listing policies for short-term rental property owners in New York City and San Francisco, possibly in response to threats of aggressive action from state and local lawmakers. With respect to New York operations, Airbnb on Wednesday proposed a set of five changes in an article penned by Chris Lehane, the company's global head of public policy.

Tesla on Wednesday announced plans to install hardware that will allow all of its cars to become driverless. The equipment will enable self-driving at a safety level substantially greater than human-driven cars, according to the company. The hardware includes eight cameras to provide 360-degree visibility; 12 ultrasonic sensors to detect hard and soft objects; and forward-facing radar.

Three owners of Galaxy Note7 smartphones this week filed a complaint in a federal court in Newark, New Jersey, that could become a class action lawsuit against Samsung. "Plaintiffs and the Class have suffered injury in fact, incurred millions of dollars in fees, and have otherwise been harmed by Samsung's conduct," the complaint states. Samsung has recalled the phones and stopped producing them.

Google last week launched a Fact Check tag to help readers find fact-checking in major news stories. Readers will see tagged articles in the expanded story box on news.google.com and in the Google News & Weather apps for iOS and Android. One factor the Google News algorithms consider in determining whether an article might contain fact checks is the Schema.org ClaimReview markup.

The status of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange grew a bit murky on Tuesday after the group accused the U.S. State Department of pressuring Ecuadorian officials to block him from posting additional emails linked to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The Ecuadorian foreign ministry on Tuesday acknowledged restricting Assange's access, saying it did not wish to interfere in a foreign election.

Apple appears to be shifting its driverless car ambitions into a lower gear. Changes in the company's automotive strategy reportedly have resulted in hundreds of job cuts and the shelving of plans to build a car of its own. Project Titan's shift in direction follows months of disagreements, leadership uncertainty, and supply chain problems within the project.

Salesforce, the last known suitor for Twitter, last week officially bowed out of the running for an acquisition deal, a move that forces the embattled company either to look for a new savior or find some internal answers to its lingering inability to find a winning growth strategy. Salesforce walked away from the deal because it wasn't the right fit, CEO Marc Benioff said.

Verizon last week indicated that its $4.8 billion acquisition of Yahoo could be in jeopardy in light of the company's delay in disclosing a massive 2014 data breach that compromised about 500 million account holders. Verizon may need some additional assurances, suggested General Counsel Craig Silliman. "I think we have a reasonable basis to believe right now that the impact is material."

Not that it isn't scary enough -- but if you look at both candidates, who have had their images destroyed largely by technology, i.e., tapes and emails -- there is a huge warning inherent in the process. Email really wasn't a big thing until the late 1990s and even having your own email server wouldn't have been likely before 2005, let alone thinking through the security aspects.

Facebook's Trending Topics section recently has carried a number of trending stories that were either "indisputably fake" or "profoundly inaccurate," according to a report this week. The news feed six weeks ago ran a false story claiming Fox News had fired anchor Megyn Kelly for being a closet liberal who supported Hillary Clinton. Facebook removed the story, apologized, and promised to do better.

When the new president takes up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., cybersecurity will be on the shortlist for action. TechNewsWorld asked more than a dozen experts what should be at the top of the new leader of the free world's cyberagenda. Following are some of their responses. "The president has to set the tone early on cybersecurity within the first 100 days," said Cybereason's Sam Curry.

The Obama administration on Tuesday indicated it was considering a proportional response to retaliate against Russia for its efforts to influence the U.S. election process. The administration has officially linked Russian operatives to a series of cyberattacks against the Democratic National Committee and other organizations, apparently in an effort to influence the November presidential race.

Samsung shares fell sharply on Tuesday after the company confirmed reports that it had halted production of its flagship Galaxy Note7 smartphone, just launched this summer. The move came after several replacement phones reportedly smoldered or caught fire. Shares fell 8 percent in the Korean market. Samsung had been working with the U.S. CPSC on a voluntary recall and replacement program.

Longstanding concerns about hiring and diversity issues in Silicon Valley recently returned to the fore. The Labor Department last month filed suit against big data firm Palantir, alleging that it had engaged in a pattern of denying jobs to Asian applicants. Race is a greater impediment than gender when it comes to breaking through corporate glass ceilings, suggests research conducted by Ascend.

Samsung has stopped production of its problematic Galaxy Note7 smartphones, according to multiple press reports Monday. The company had been offering replacements of the phone after issuing a recall due to defective batteries, but all four major carriers have stopped doing so, presumably because several of the replacements exhibited similar problems, including smoking and catching fire.

That's the situation Samsung found itself in last week when the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a warning about certain top-load washing machines made by the company between March 2011 and April 2016. "CPSC is advising consumers to only use the delicate cycle when washing bedding, water-resistant and bulky items," reads a statement at the commission's website.

Newsweek is the latest media institution to get caught up in a series of cyberattacks that have targeted major government, political and media organizations, raising suspicions of links to Russia. The news magazine sustained a massive DDoS attack the day after it published a cover story about Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's business activities in the late 1990s.

Southwest Airlines on Wednesday evacuated a plane after a Samsung Galaxy Note7 began popping and issuing thick smoke. Samsung last month began replacing Galaxy Note7s globally, following reports of several of the devices catching fire or exploding. It blamed the problem on an "isolated" faulty battery cell issue. The latest incident reportedly involved a replacement phone.

In a bid to help bolster trust in its customer ratings, Amazon on Monday said that it no longer would allow most incentivized reviews -- that is, reviews written in exchange for receiving products free or at a discount. Such reviews comprise only a small percentage of the tens of millions of reviews of products sold on the site, maintained Amazon Vice President of Customer Experience Chee Chew.

Federal authorities have been investigating reports that hackers targeted the mobile phones of a handful of Democratic Party staffers. The news follows a series of breaches in recent months that revealed emails and other personal information of party staffers and other Democratic officials.
The FBI has launched an investigation into the attacks, which may be linked to Russia.

One of the problems facing the technology industry right now is the critical lack of strategic thinking. Hedge fund managers and activist investors increasingly are forcing tactical decisions that raise stock prices over the short term, largely by destroying the firm's long-term viability. Most top executives don't seem to understand they are destroying their companies until it's too late.

Perhaps still reeling from what's widely viewed as the bruising he took in a debate watched by more than 80 million people on TV earlier this week -- countless more online -- Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday opened a campaign rally with a previously discredited attack. Google's search engine was biased in favor of his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, he claimed.

It's no longer a question whether hackers will influence the 2016 U.S. elections -- only how much they'll be able to sway them. Leaked emails already have cost a Democratic Party chairperson her job, and the FBI last month issued a flash warning that foreign cyberadversaries had breached two state election databases. Those two states -- most likely Arizona and Illinois -- aren't alone.